From: owner-aml-list-digest@lists.xmission.com (aml-list-digest) To: aml-list-digest@lists.xmission.com Subject: aml-list-digest V1 #987 Reply-To: aml-list Sender: owner-aml-list-digest@lists.xmission.com Errors-To: owner-aml-list-digest@lists.xmission.com Precedence: bulk aml-list-digest Wednesday, March 5 2003 Volume 01 : Number 987 ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Mon, 03 Mar 2003 09:15:32 -0700 From: "Eric R. Samuelsen" Subject: RE: [AML] Singles Ward What a great post from Jason Covell about Singles Ward. His main point, = which would be that those of us living in Utah right now are likely to = have a very different opinion of the film than those living outside Utah, = is absolutely valid. Point well taken. As far as the train wreck Cammie scene goes, Jason's reading of the scene = would have some validity if ever, over the rest of the film, the film had = agreed with him. I personally wouldn't have the slightest problem with = that scene if sometime later Cammie had said "hey, I just got my mission = call, you caught me at a bad time. Sorry, I overreacted." One moment, = taking twenty seconds film time, and the scene and moment and to a large = extent the movie would have been saved. As it is, the film agrees with = her. That's why I hate the scene.=20 It is, however, likely, that those of us living in Utah are overreacting = to a movie that maybe isn't so offensive. Quite true. I thought = Crocodile Dundee was a fairly lousy movie, myself, but I remember laughing = at it. (Oddly enough, I hated the girl in that movie too.) So maybe = those of us who live in Utah should get over ourselves? Good advice. Eric Samuelsen - -- AML-List, a mailing list for the discussion of Mormon literature ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 4 Mar 2003 15:33:06 -0700 From: "Thom Duncan" Subject: RE: [AML] Programming as Art >-----Original Message----- >From: owner-aml-list@lists.xmission.com >[mailto:owner-aml-list@lists.xmission.com] On Behalf Of Jacob Proffitt >books aren't art. Theater isn't art. I dare you to frame the >last performance of "The Way We're Wired" tonight. Well, when people stopped coming in, we started the play. By ten o-clock that night, we stopped. Isn't that a frame? Why would think "Wired" couldn't be framed? Thom - -- AML-List, a mailing list for the discussion of Mormon literature ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 3 Mar 2003 17:54:57 EST From: BroHam000@aol.com Subject: [AML] Article by Elder Ballard I just received an article via LDS-GEMS. It's entitled "In the Language of Eternity." It's all about the Latter-day Saint artist - and I appreciate that Elder Ballard points out that there is an artist of some kind in each of us. Maybe the rest of you are familiar with it; I found it to be a succinct treatise of the vision of Latter-day Saint art. It's in the New Era, Aug. 1996, pp. 4-7. Linda Hyde - -- AML-List, a mailing list for the discussion of Mormon literature ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 4 Mar 2003 06:00:00 -0700 From: "Alan Rex Mitchell" Subject: Re: [AML] Thanks to AML People I'm glad someone corrected it to Thom. I was there and he should get the credit--not only for the volume of the snore, but for the timing (in the middle of one particularly long whispy poem at 4:10 in the afternoon.) He may have done it out of his age, but age also brings a sense of timing, position (he was in the center of the audience), and appropriateness. BYW, out of fear of my own snoring at the AML reading that Saturday night, I went to "The way we're wired," and had a most enjoyable time. Everyone was laughing and crying. The kiss was good, that is, natural and long. I took my sister-in-law who spent a decade in Young Adult groups between her marriages, and she loved it. Bravo Eric and Scott and cast. What's the next play? Alan Mitchell - -- AML-List, a mailing list for the discussion of Mormon literature ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 4 Mar 2003 11:05:20 -0700 From: Marny Parkin Subject: Re: [AML] Mormon Lit 2002 in Review: Short Stories A few more: Bell, M. Shayne. "Anomalous Sturctures of My Dreams." _Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction_ (January 2002). Hickman, Tracy. "The Anvil of Time." In _The Best of Tales, Volume Two_, ed. Margaret Weis and Tracy Hickman. Wizards of the Coast, 2002. Originally published in _Dragon_ magazine. Lickiss, Alan. "Alternate Marketing." _Analog Science Fiction and Fact_ (January 2002). Lickiss, Alan. "Legal Action." In _Star Trek Strange New Worlds_, ed. Dean Wesley Smith, John J. Ordover, and Paula M. Block. Vol. 5. New York: Simon and Schuster/Pocket Books, 2002. Also, Shayne Bell hasn't been nominated for a Hugo Award since 1995 (for "Mrs. Lincoln's China") but is currently on the preliminary ballot for the Nebula Awards for "Refugees from Nulongwe" (published in _Sci Fiction_ [May 2001] available at http://www.scifi.com/scifiction/originals/originals_archive/bell/). Marny Parkin - -- AML-List, a mailing list for the discussion of Mormon literature ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 4 Mar 2003 11:40:12 -0700 (MST) From: Subject: Re: [AML] _The RM_ Also, don't forget that it *is* a comedy, not a realism piece. We decided in the mid-1800's or so that realism wasn't working out so well. So we stopped writing fiction works that depicted reality and went with stuff that was entertaining and lighthearted, because reality was too boring. :) ~bryan loeper - -- AML-List, a mailing list for the discussion of Mormon literature ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 3 Mar 2003 10:16:07 -0700 From: Christopher Bigelow Subject: [AML] Des News on Samuelsen's Film Paper Big Fat Mormon Wedding? By Sharon Haddock Deseret News staff writer PROVO - It's a Sunday afternoon somewhere in Utah, and all of the relatives - some of them rather quirky people - want to meet the new beau. Everybody has a bit of advice and an embarrassing story to tell about the bride. There are snoopy questions for the groom, especially after the bunch discovers he didn't serve an LDS mission. Or - gasp! - isn't even a member of The Church. Could such a scene work on the silver screen? Yes - and it might work well, says Eric Samuelsen, a Brigham Young University drama professor who dabbles in theater with Mormon themes. Samuelsen says Mormon culture could work effectively in crossover films just as Greekness worked in "My Big Fat Greek Wedding," a surprise hit at the box office. The movie, scripted by and starring Nia Vardalos, has - at last count - - taken in more than $240 million for its makers, who spent only $5 million to produce it. A spin-off/sequel TV series, "My Big Fat Greek Life," debuted this week on CBS, starring Vardalos and many others from the movie's cast. In the movie, the leading lady, Toula, is part of a big, noisy family full of crazy characters. The family struggles to deal with her engagement to Ian Miller, a non-Greek man. A similar formula could generate a crossover Mormon movie, says Samuelsen, who spoke at the recent conference of the Association for Mormon Letters. And it's more than departing from the standard boy-meets-girl, girl-and-boy-fight, girl-and-boy-kiss-and-makeup conflict pattern used in so many movies. "The key . . . is to focus on the inclusiveness and cultural negotiation that goes on in a social structure like the LDS culture," Samuelsen said. "I'd like to suggest that cultural negotiation is the key to the film's extraordinary success. Greek culture, as portrayed in this film, seems loud and boisterous and earthy, but we can also see how confining it is. And yet, in the film's finest moments, the film reveals a culture confident enough to open itself up to redefinition." Samuelsen said he saw the film knowing little about Greek-Ameri-can society - but it intrigued him. "The story really is about this woman's gentle rebellion as she attempts to carve out a place for herself" in a loving but controlling family. "It's comparatively conflict-less. Toula is mature, sensible. When she's told she can't see Ian, she sees and marries him anyway, recognizing that she's 30, old enough to make her own choices." Samuelsen said LDS-centric movies such as "RM," "Singles Ward" and "Charly" tend to take the opposite approach to what he sees as a more workable and joyful tack. "They seem to say you need to fit into the culture, like a bunch of square pegs into neat little round holes," he said. Samuelsen said his ideas went over big at the Mormon Letters conference. He wasn't intending to write a screenplay when he began his scholarly paper, but the response now has him considering it. Maybe not "My Big Fat Mormon Wedding" - perhaps "My Big Fat Mormon Funeral." "It could work," he said. "I actually think Mormon culture is more inclusive than we get credit for. We know, in our hearts, we're as big - and as fat - as any Greek." - -- AML-List, a mailing list for the discussion of Mormon literature ------------------------------ End of aml-list-digest V1 #987 ******************************